Another branch of Marmon-Herrington’s many activities was the manufacturing of large trucks. It was a low-volume marginal affair, and production ceased in 1963. But the truck brand name was sold to a new entity,which built large over-the-road trucks from 1963 until 1997. Marmon was strictly a low volume built-to-order firm, and thus earned the nick-name “the Rolls Royce of Trucks”. Now if I had a vintage Marmon truck, I’d just have to drop in a DD 16V-71. I googled ferociously on the assumption someone else had thought of it, but no such luck. Is there a shortage of imagination among truckers? But here’s a couple of others to gaze at anyway:

During my hitchhiking years, I only scored one ride in a Marmon, a cab-over unit, as most were then east of the Rockies. I knew of Marmon’s rep, and felt privileged to climb up into the R-R of trucks. Well, I can assure you there were no Conolly hides, walnut burl dash or Wilton wool carpets. It was a dark and loud vinyl cave, and reeked of a mixture of diesel and BO. But a Marmon had status at the truck stop, thanks to that big M on the front.

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There are still a few Marmon Conventionals running around Illinois and Iowa. Im guessing that they are the 80s or 90s versions. I usually see them being run as grain haulers or tippers on the farms out west.

Was the 16V-71 ever used in an OEM truck application? I know the 12V was … but I thought the 16V and 24V were marine/rail/stationary only. I was a design engineer at Peterbilt for 5 years in the late ’70’s and early ’80’s and IIRC we looked down on Marmons, Western Stars and Autocars as poorly engineered relics from another era. Autocar now seems to have a niche market for garbage trucks and Western Star is owned by Daimler, along with Freightliner – and Detroit Diesel.

A generation ago, Class 8 trucks were very much a regional thing. Here in the west it was all about Peterbilt, Kenworth, Freightliner and Western Star. Marmon, along with makes such as Brockway and Diamond Reo were pretty much eastern brands so it was always a treat when you saw one. Frankly the one Marmon I remember seeing didn’t impress me much at the time. It’s blocky styling and the use of the same fender mold Kenworth used gave it a “home built” look. The guy who drove it claimed it was a lot tighter than a Kenworth and didn’t have wind or water leaks after several years of use so I guess they were built well. The styling grows on you as well.
I’ve never seen a 16V-71 in anything smaller than the huge off road dump trucks used in the mining industry and that was a long time ago. I can’t imagine anyone wanting one in an over the road truck due to the extra weight and fuel consumption involved but anything is possible. Assuming the same state of tune used on 8V-71s you’d be looking at 635-700 bhp and maybe 1800 ft-lbs of torque. It wouldn’t have been hard even back then to build an N or K series Cummins that would meet or exceed those numbers.
Still, it sure would have looked/sounded cool…..